Some hikers passed us at that point, and I turned and asked them, “Can you year that? Does it sound like someone calling for help?”

They looked at us and replied, “Yes, it sounds like that.”

Then they turned back to their conversation and walked on!

We were shocked to say the least, at how casual someone could ignore what really sounded like a cry for help.

Well, our hike took a slightly different turn and we followed the voice until we came upon a gentleman, who was not needing help, but trying to find his dog! His dog’s name sure sounded like “help.”

We took a different path back, still wondering why no-one else on the trail went to find out if he needed assistance. It stuck with me.

Different thoughts rolled around in my mind, and came back to the realization that most people just don’t like to get involved. In fact, they prefer to pretend they didn’t see, or hear that someone might need help.

My thoughts immediately took me back to all of the “lost” children out there. Some in group homes, some in orphanages, some around the corner, and some across the world. All with a very small voice that is trying to be heard. “I want a family; I want a mom and dad.”

The statistics are shocking. There are so many children, our next and future generations that do not have any home, let alone a stable, loving family.

So, maybe it’s time to shake it up. Grow awareness. If you relate, know about this issue and are involved, I would love to hear your thoughts.

I believe in miracles go here and listen to this amazing song about ordinary miracles.

In my family ordinary, everyday miracles happen, because I believe.

I don’t even think about it, I just believe.

I could not have done that some seventeen years ago, but my life changed.

I had, HAD to, believe in ordinary, everyday miracles. For my kids.

I am in Nashville right now. I have a child, that is legally mine, who is a walking miracle.

I read up on google, who is your friend, today about his diagnosis.

He should not be alive, let alone, be walking or talking or being anything other than maybe in a vegetative state, or a slow, long, painful recovery of a very severely traumatized brain.

What I read. An aneurism, a blood clot, a stroke, a trauma to his grey/white matter in his brain. Top that off with a spleen trauma, deep lacerations to his left face, ear, hand, arm, and five different fractures to his back.

This is a walking miracle. Four weeks later, he is talking, standing, walking, still a little scrambled in his memories vs his aspirations, but heck, even the hospital staff and doctors don’t get this. He is God’s Miracle.

This child, or young man really, I just think of him as a child, came to me seven years ago because of another miracle in his life.

You see, he was adopted, but the adoption went sour, and south, in a very bad way. The end result was he was the kid who escaped the authorities in both countries, Liberia and USA, and ended up in the interior of Rivercess. He was westernized. He couldn’t catch fish with his bare hands, or climb a coconut tree. He suffered beyond what a child should. He thought he deserved this.

I didn’t. My amazing hubby didn’t either. And we found him and brought him back. An amazing miracle. How do you find a kid in the jungle in less than a day? God. This is the young man who has yet again suffered physically, and mentally.

When I heard the news, I never doubted he would be healed, fully, back to total mental and physical health. I am watching that happen.

He will survive. He will be full restored cognitively and physically. He will have all of his memories, and full capacity of his abilities.

You see, our God reigns. Supremely, undoubtedly, truthfully, justly, righteously, kindly, and knows everything. Yup, everything. He guides us, forgives us, loves us, and heals. Mind, body, soul and spirit. He is our creator of everything including life and death. He decides, we don’t. We only think we do.

Challenges are God breathed. They are there for us to meet, rise up and move forward.

Short synopsis. He was adopted from a Liberian orphanage at around eight years of age.

He was sent back by his adoptive parents to Liberia five years later.

Illegal by anyone’s standards.

Lots of red tape, custody papers, a flight to get him and he came back. Became a part of our family. He is third from the left, in the front row, in the photo above.

Tough few years getting him educated, helping him through his fear, anger, resentment, abandonment issues, rejection and trying to teach him to love.

Still fighting the rules and the systems, he did get graduated and got his drivers license. He was free!

He has “lived” his life over the last couple of years experiencing failure, tough times, hard decisions and finding his place.

He has kept in touch, especially in the moments where, he was living in his car in California and needing to get home, when he just needed to know I was there, the occasional comment on social media, but I knew where he was, and most importantly, he knew where I was.

Then shocking news. He was in a serious car accident, barely hanging on to life for several days. A “miracle” he was alive. I had to choke back tears when I saw him. On a breathing machine, his left ear swollen from being stitched back to his head, the intubation, the distortion from swelling, the tubes everywhere including the top of his head to relieve the fluid.

But, he is a fighter, and he has a purpose in this world. I knew from the moment I heard that I would start fighting in the spiritual world for his total recovery.

I experienced his fight in the spiritual, and I knew he would not give up. I had a peace, a peace that passes all understanding that he would be not just ok, but totally himself.

Brain trauma is a scary thing, he has a road ahead, but not one he will not conquer.

He is one state away from me, so I drive every week to see him. Tomorrow I drive and I get to see him awake, just three weeks after this terrible accident.

If you would like to know his story you can buy my book, “Finding Friday” here.

You can find his song, “Run To” on my cd “Broken Hearts And Broken Wings” here. These are songs related to fostering and adoption.

Ok, I’m gonna explain something here that sort of doesn’t get explained. We all have desires of the heart. Ok, another word for dreams, dreams we have in our earthly world that we really hope will come true.

We all believe to some extent. What is that extent? All in, half in, maybe in? What are we believing in? Great question.

God says he will grant the desires of our heart, but those desires have been planted by him. So, being a foster adoptive parent, the desire to do this has been planted by God.

Faith. The faith to do this. Smaller than even you can see, feel or believe, but there is faith and God honors faith. Unless you don’t take action. You see faith is nothing without action.

Example. Our child Isaiah, not the child we asked for, or even saw fitting in our family, but one God asked us to rescue and embrace. Only thing we had here to cling onto was faith. Faith that God would provide answers, protection for our kids, and provision for Isaiah. Well He, God, did all of that, but not without our action.

Belief. The biggie guys. It is so hard to believe in what seems impossible, but I can testify about healed hearts, healed speech, healed legs to walk and more than that right now with Isaiah being healed from certain death.

So, the three things that we need are desire to do, faith to believe, and Belief to really believe. But the fourth, is the necessity. Take action on all of these. Faith, Belief, and Desire.

How do we get it? Ok, we are taught faith, and we are taught to believe, but what is the desire factor and how does it impact us?

Simple. We can talk all sorts of things in our heads, we can even believe we are meant to do something, but, whether it is adoption, or fostering, or a personal issue, like weight, you need your desire to be the same level as your belief and your faith. Then, nothing is impossible, unless you choose to never take action.

Yup, I know this is radical, but it is true. Your mind is the bearer of all bad thoughts, your heart tries to overcome and intervene, and your faith is struggling between the two.

Faith + belief + desire + action, the recipe for overcoming all odds. So how do you find it? I found it. It took a lot of time and years, but, I found it.

I learned to believe above all odds, have faith in that, and combine my desire for any situation with both belief and faith. And then? Take Action!!!!! Magic combination.

If you need to know more please contact me. I will always be there to answer your questions.

I am a foster/adoptive parent of special needs children, and rescued overseas children in danger. I believe, have faith, have desire and I always take action.

My son, Isaiah, or his real name Friday, has at many times needed in his mind to be just that. He is the one third from the left, front row, in the photo.

An Island.

Why?

Because too many people had failed him. Let him down.

He felt abandoned. Alone. Unloved, Rejected. But strong.

You see through his trials, losing his mother, losing his father when he could not provide for him anymore, losing his first adoptive family because they were too young and made mistakes, being sent back, yes “back” to Africa, being in the “interior” a nice name for jungle and suffering to the point of death at a very young age.

Starving, not knowing how to catch fish with his bare hands, not knowing how to climb a coconut tree. These were the issues a westernized, thirteen year old faced going back to the Interior, south of Monrovia, Liberia.

Did it make him STRONG? You bet. There is a song out there called “Stronger” and the words pale into insignificance compared to my sweet boy’s journey.

Strong is now being applied in a different way. A car crash. Terrible. No one even knows how he was alive when they found him. Two hours after, and two rescue units to cut him out. An ear cut off, a spleen damaged, three fractures of his spine, but the worst? A life threatening head injury. Trauma to his brain. Swelling, fluid that causes life and death issues, not only with the brain, but with the lungs filling with fluid.

He IS a MIRACLE!!!

Dang, another one?

You see when you become part of my family, a miracle is expected.

I never doubted his recovery from first knowledge. I just prayed. I interceded in the heavenlys, I sent healing to him through prayers and intercession, holding a space for him to recover. He has, and will have a full recovery. Why, because my desire for this meets my belief it will happen.

Ok, sink that in. When you believe as much as you desire, then God makes it happen. I could tell you more miracles that have happened because my dog determined belief plus desire made it happen.

That’s another blog. But, my sweet boy, is going to be ok. It will take time, but not the time they think, because once again, he is STRONG, and my belief/desire is STRONG!

I am in awe of the power of God, the healing powers, but also the gifts he gives of discernment to hear when his children are hurting and the gift of intercession.

The other miracle here is, there is not a mark on his face. He has stitches for cuts on his left arm, and it was his left ear, all of course on the drivers side, but, not a mark on his sweet, beautiful face. Not a stitch, nothing. God is good all of the time.

Now, I am going to challenge you on something. You see I don’t look at the negative, which means I walk in abundance. This took me a while to discern, but I believe always in the healing, the restoration, never the opposite.

Thoughts for you to ponder on. Don’t always go to the negative, always desire and believe. All things are possible, everything is possible if you BELIEVE!

I’m gonna dive in deep early. We all have a spirit, soul, mind and flesh.

Our flesh is weak. Gives in to our desires, unless we are in mindfulness.

What is that?

Being present in your mind at all times. Understanding weakness.

Our minds are weak, as well as our flesh.

Our soul, and our spirit are strong. Connected.

Especially in trauma, or desperation.

I have two things going on right now with my children.

My adopted, and my long term foster/ rescued child.

My child from Africa in a coma? Such a miracle. Visited.

He knew me. I stopped myself from crying. Why?

He needed me to be strong. I was. But I will cry after writing this.

He grabbed my hand, he tried to speak to me, he will be healed.

NO DOUBTS! More on that as we progress.

My “New” Thompsons’ as we call them, a search and find mission.

Epilepsy. Crap, I was not aware there were so many types and manifestations of this disease. I know the stuff in the daytime.

Freaking scary! Dang! I remember being afraid of asthma.

This has nothing on that. But, dealt the hand, you learn to deal.

So I have two that do this during the day. Nothing usual in their seizures, both children, different, and needing a constant watch to know if that “tick, blink, head throw,” was actually a grand mal seizure. In fact, one just rolls her eyes back, and sinks to the floor seemingly unconscious. SCARY!!! Missed many of the tick, blink, head throws as being “ticks.” So hard to know, even for a really expert pediatrician.

But now I have sleeping seizures. Jesus take the wheel on this. I know for sure in one, but on reading up on this suspect two. That makes four out of four in two sets of twins from same biological Mom.

So, what do I feel about this? What are my thoughts about this? We already know the situation, epileptic seizures, but then how do I act on this information? That’s pretty clear on all of those. Dang, you get real. You understand that your child, is in a situation that needs medical, neurological help and you make the appointment. I have. Not putting my head in the sand here. I am the General, you know, the one that makes the decisions, and takes the action.

So what is the outcome of these seizures that are sort of silent, in their sleep, like how do I know this is happening????

I will accept all advice, but, for me first is an old fashioned baby monitor. Totally thank one of my older kids friends, (another un- officially adopted Thompson.) Yup, I am gonna hear a disturbance. Next is convincing my teenagers that I am not spying on their privacy, but concerned about their seizures.

I am learning on my journey and continue to search for answers. I will blog and keep you all in the loop. I am in reality, but also know that my faith + my desire have to be the same, and wow, it is above a ten for both. When we wholly desire and wholly believe at the same level, anything is possible. Another time, but I could tell you a list of miracles I have witnessed through being aligned totally with desire and faith.

You may be reading this and are struggling with an issue, a health issue, with your foster or adoptive children, or even your biological child, please contact me. I am always open to a free, yup FREE, coaching session where I can help you find out YOUR feelings and thoughts about this.

I’m not a therapist guys, I’m a foster/adoptive parent who happens to be a life coach, double certified, ready and willing. I help you find out what YOU think about this.

Until the next blog, which will be soon, so much happening. I am going to keep you informed and up to date.

The things that matter. Bonds, families, siblings, discipline and love.

I did drink a lot of coffee, but I love what this book says.

You see, if you are not a foster parent, but have thought about it, you need to read this.

I will explain why, right now.

Years ago, some nearly twenty years, I made a decision that changed my life. I became a foster parent. I didn’t dream this, I didn’t crave this, it was not my biggest desire, but, I knew I was called to do this.

At my heart, my greatest desire is to write. Music, books, poems, anything that matters and can make a difference. Foster parents make a difference.

The problem has escalated way beyond twenty years ago.

Drug abuse is at an all time high. So is terrorism.

These two things alone put children in a place without parents.

So, in comes the foster parent.

Or so you would hope.

But there are not enough foster parents to go around.

Children are in group homes, a pretty name for an orphanage.

Here in the United States and other western countries.

Ok, I know not all of you reading this are called to be foster parents.

But, can you be aware? Can you step up to help another foster parent?

There’s a lot of talk right now about “being a village.”

But no talk of the countless numbers of foster children in our country.

We need to be their village.

The kids need us.

They are alone, they have lost everything, and no, they are not animals that have been abused, but human beings. Little people.

Children.

Lost in a world that doesn’t care.

I need some volunteers to give me some feed back on my book. I would love some of you to email me and let me know if you would read it.

You see, these younger four children, two sets of twins, who came from the same birth Mom, (Mum Aussie), are amazing, have conquered so much and blew all diagnosis’ out of the park.

Well on a trip recently to one of our favorite places to visit, a third had a grand mal seizure, while asleep, in the back of our vehicle, which is an airport shuttle.

One, I haven’t had any of them have a seizure while asleep, and two she wasn’t on the list to be epileptic, and three, where and what is causing this?

All of my years of handling seizures went out of the window. I thought something else, something much more serious. A cat scan ruled that out, and an EEG confirmed multi epilepsy.

Well, I could be freaked out, but I am glad I know my enemy. I am thanking God it was not a tumor or something worse. It is a different form from her twin, and different from her younger sister, but the same genetics.

The fourth? Yup. He has an EEG scheduled because he has developed intermittent “tics” which look like his younger sister who has multi focal epilepsy, that means in all parts of her brain, but does not have what we think is a seizure until all those parts fire off at the same time.

I will be relieved, pleased, estactic in fact, if it is only indeed a “tick.” But, my gut says get it checked out. I am not up for anymore surprises. No more seizures in the back of our “bus” and no more traumas to child and family.

So, do I regret buying into this by fostering and adopting these four amazing children? Never. Not a moment. Not a second. Not a diagnosis, not a reality, not a fearful moment, nothing, no nothing, separates me from my children.

You see, while I did not know I could handle this, God did. He knew he could trust me to put them first, even if I didn’t. I’ve never trusted myself, but somehow, God did. And, I am so glad He did.

If you have ever thought about this journey, as a foster/adoptive parent, you probably will not have the same issues, complicated, and needing issues that we did, because God will call you, and give you the children that are meant for you.

There are few that are called to the mission field, and even fewer that are called to do the mission. This is a mission field, one that God asked us to in James 1.27. You, and everyone are called to that mission field, but are you called to do, “DO” the mission.

Only you know.

If this has touched your heart, is calling on your heart and soul, please sign up on my email and contact me. I would love to help you on your journey to find which child, or children, belong in YOUR home.

I would like to ask the controversial question, are we a whole or are we islands?

You see, I understand Islands. I lived in one for forty years. Australia.

An island that looks really small on the map, but is the same size as mainland USA.

What I learned from living on an Island.

You pay a heck of a lot more for everything. It has to be imported from a long way a way.

You open your borders somewhat foolishly because you cannot populate your country with the amount of people you have.

Then, you look around and suddenly your island is populated with people you are outnumbered by.

So you start to change the rules you began with.

It can go on and on, but we cannot be just an Islands (of people) anywhere.

As a foster/adoptive parent I know that being an “island” doesn’t work. It doesn’t benefit anyone. The parent or the child.

I think it works the same with what is happening in our world.

We are all frightened by something, and then become an island.

Islands are not protected terrible well. I have had children come into my care that have become their own “Island.” They are angry, aggressive, confused, and do not want to listen to what is common sense. They take a while to understand that while they were abused by some terrible people, those people were few, compared to many that wanted to love them, nuture them and become their families.

As an experienced foster/adoptive mum, I have knowledge of, been part of, and helped so many children who really thought that everyone in their existence was against them. They acted out, sometimes dangerously, emotionally, and extremely stubbornly to just be heard.

I wonder if there were more trained, knowledgeable parents to foster some of our children, would so many end up in prisons, in a life of drugs, confused, and angry at society.

Did you know that as high as 98% of children who stay in foster care until released at the ripe old age of 18, end up in trouble?

Why do we want to be an island? Does it feel safer? Do we fear judgment from others that look different? I don’t have the answers, but there has to be one, because the Island Of Race, or The Island Of Self, Or the Island of country is not working.

I watched, briefly, because I really think some talk shows are just talking about themselves, a show that was making a big deal, like a first world problem, into like a major, we have to fix it now, issue.

Over food preferences in college?

What is that?

Maybe they should think past their own interests and understand how many children in this country do without food, let alone food of their “preference.”

If you are not aware, then I will put this in perspective. Around the corner, yes, just down the road from you, like now, are kids without food. School is out you see. Their one meal a day is gone. Free Lunch.

So, while we are getting on our soap boxes about this and that, and complaining about our freedoms, our children, most of them minority race, but of all colors, races, American kids folks, are going hungry, while we spend our time and money on personal interests.

We are mostly a privileged society, we have freedoms of speech etc, and use it often, like now when there is turmoil and strife. But we are adults and have a right to that, our children don’t. They are silenced, they are lost, lost in a world that has too much else to do.

In these times when we are focused on all sorts of terrible things, which are not right, which shouldn’t happen, can we also understand that the more we focus there, the less we focus on our children who are being left behind, being abused, not educated, left alone with not many people who are either interested or are ignorant of the growing numbers of these “lost” children in our country.

Stand up, not only for what you think are your personal issues, but STAND UP for our kids who have no-one to care for them. The “lost” ones. Lost in our systems, lost in our “project societies” lost in poverty in our suburbs, lost in hunger in other parts of the world, lost in orphanages, lost in a motel room surrounded by a sea of dirty diapers. That’s where my first set of twins came from. It’s real folks, let’s wake up.

Let’s stand up and cross the seas, eliminate the islands, become one, and whole.

I am not making this up, wish I was, but kids are going hungry that live down the road from you, while you are ordering “To Go.” Click on “to go” to hear the song I wrote that is relevant.

I will tell you that yup I do all of that. I dream, I want, I expect, and I don’t doubt any of it is coming to me, because, why?

WHY?

For most people, including some of my close family and friends, I am too much, I do dream too much, I do want too much and I do expect too much. Because, I’ve not only earned it, but I’ve dreamed it and expected it to happen. And can I tell you it DID! I believed.

From the beginning of my foster/adoption journey I have never, no NEVER, believed the bad report. I have always not doubted, but expected it all to be as it should. A healthy, functioning child. Even when I was looking at a child that should, had, and indeed could live this bad report. I_just_never_believed_in_the_bad_report.

Some say I was just lucky. My bad prognosis kids all turned out to be functioning. Luck is not an option. Belief and prayer is. Not giving up is. Giving up my wants was a big part. Paying attention, giving my time, being dedicated to their outcome? Yup that was part of it. Prayer? Yup about ninety percent. Luck, about zero percent. Belief, oh yeah, like two hundred percent. If you cannot believe, how can you do any of the other stuff?

Ok, now lets put this into some of your real lives. Do you believe in what you are called to do? Do you believe that your dreams really do come true? Do you believe that you are the one person who can make all of this happen? If you do, and it doesn’t then come back to your mind and your thoughts, then somewhere there in your mind is a dis-connect. Between the belief and the non-belief

I am here to tell you if you dwell in the dis-belief, or non-belief that is what you are going to get. When you stay down in the negative stuff which is really relevant to fostering, then you will attract that stuff. It will consume you. You will stop thinking about your child, and being an advocate for that needing little one, and go on a merry go round of fighting, and negativity. Don’t DO this. There is a better way.

Focus. Keep your head in the clouds!! The clouds are a representation of Heaven in our minds. When we look up and see them we think of Heaven. So, keep your head there. Don’t let thoughts rule you. Dream big dreams for your kids, both foster, adopted and biological. Never give up, fight back, and most of all?